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I present to you this week's work of art from my family of misunderstood artists:

Maybe we could get an NEA grant?

I know, it's amazing. Especially the way the eggshells are carefully balanced on the empty potato skins - a tangible representation of the fragility of life, contrasted with the earthiness from which it sprung and to which it will return. And yet, despite all, there thrives the delicacy of beauty, as evidenced by the half eaten strawberry perched on top.

I bet you didn't catch all that on your first look, did you?

Today was crazy and tomorrow is worse - I have to drive a few hours to get to our statewide homeschooling conference. Now, I have only one 13-year-old left to homeschool, and I doubt anything I hear from anyone will change much about how I go about it; but I have to go because this year I was dragooned into being on a panel featuring -- let's see...how should I put this delicately? -- a panel featuring experienced homeschooling moms, ones with perspective, shall we say.

We're the gray-haired old bats of homeschooling, essentially. I don't see how any younger mom of younger kids could possibly be reassured by talking to what is essentially the shell of the confident mother I used to be. Maybe I'm on the panel as a cautionary note - you know, a here's what happens if you do this homeschooling thing for too long sort of approach...

So I'm bringing Susie with me and she'll get to see the talent show and partake in the ice cream social, and maybe volunteer a bit at the conference. Really, I see nothing wrong with this plan except that we have to hit the road at 6:30 AM, and who do you think is kicking herself for not going down this evening with the rest of the homeschoolers from my area? I could have been blogging at you from a comfy hotel suite and looking forward to a good night's sleep. I definitely wouldn't have had to spend half an hour this evening carping at the kids to clean up after dinner.

But no, I'm still here at home, and it's late and I still have to pack. And I haven't even gotten to tell you how Larry ruined my snow day yesterday. Remember? I was blogging about how I was going to spend the day knitting and making hot cocoa? And that's just what I was doing until Larry said, "Hey, this is a perfect day to do our taxes!"

I don't know what is wrong with that man. Did I look too happy? Was that it? Probably.

This may look like a melted snowman, but what it
represents (artistically speaking) is a
snow day absolutely ruined by taxes.

So I did our taxes. While the kids played outside, sledding and building snowmen, because kids don't have to pay taxes. And to think I used to believe that being an adult would be fun...